Tuesday, January 27, 2015

During my trip to the Malaysian tea expo last month, I spent the bulk of my tea money buying these 98 Xiaguan tuos. I purchased 4 bags containing 5 100g tuos in each bag. You will noticed the 'yi-ji' or 1st grade description on the bag as well as on the individual wrappers of each tuo. Xiaguan today produces many pu erh tea and many of their tuos have descriptions like jia-ji, te-ji meaning special grade and top grade, which is a bit mind boggling. Nevertheless its lots of fun sampling through these Xiaguan teas.

I shall go easy on this purchase and will refrain from opening and drinking these tuos. I only have some tea that are pre year 2000. I was just thinking…... if I store away this tea for another 3-4 years, the tea would be a 20 year old tea. A very tempting proposition but knowing me, I would have consumed the tea by then.

I can understand why my malaysian tea drinking friends are going gaga over this tea. This tea has aged well with good strong taste and aroma. Nice hints of sandalwood and camphor with a nice sweet finish. This tea brews well and can easily go 12 infusions. A happy tea. I believed that this lot of 98 Xiaguan tuos will have been totally bought up by my tea friends by now.

Monday, January 19, 2015

I had purchased this 1998 Xiaguan raw tuos (see pix) during my last Malaysian visit. My Malaysian tea friends liked this tea and I decided a buy some. A little expensive but the following well written article gives a clear picture on the prices of premium Chinese tea today.

The following article was written by Chalrlie Layon appearing on SCMP, 29 Dec 2014. (http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-wine/article/1668217/chinas-premium-tea-prices-have-cooled-its-still-boom-time-some)

China's premium-tea prices have cooled, but it's still boom time for some

Hong Kong's first auction of premium teas captured imaginations far and wide last year, when interest was piqued by the sky-high asking prices. One 20kg box of narcissus oolong tea was valued at nearly HK$1 million.

Free-spending mainland buyers, who had already driven up the prices of French wines and fine art, were now turning their attention to tea, it was suspected. When the oolong went under the gavel for well over the expected price at the Sensation of Tea auction, it seemed that the tea boom prognosticators had been proven right.

This year's auction - Fascination of Tea - showcased even rarer teas at even more jaw-dropping prices. One cake of Qianlizhen Songpinhao puer, considered one of the rarest teas, was valued at HK$2 million. But when the gavel came down for the last time on November 26, it was clear that something significant had changed. Many teas struggled to reach their minimum prices, and the HK$2 million puer went unsold.

So, what happened? Some bulls were left wondering if the market had already gone bust. Was the pot plugged by an economic slowdown and anti-corruption drive in China? Or did the global trend in favour of coffee and wine appreciation mean the future of premium tea was uncertain?

High-end teas - especially puer, a fermented dark tea from Yunnan province that improves with age - each have their own back stories and mythologies, and boast great cultural import as well as exceptional flavour. They have become potent status symbols in modern China.

"The prices for famous super-premium teas in China have been the subject of a massive speculative bubble over the past decade, driven mainly by local officials driving up retail prices to garner bragging rights," says Tony Dick, director of Hong Kong distributor Tea Concepts.

High-end tea, like fine wines and other luxury goods, were casualties of the mainland's anti-corruption crackdown. Longjing - or Dragon Well, a roasted green tea from a village in Zhejiang province - was mentioned specifically by the government, and state media stories reported that the tea's price had declined by as much as a third, and was evidence that the crackdown was succeeding.

Experts agree that the anti-corruption drive has had an effect on consumption of the finest teas, but say the effects are exaggerated by the state.

Adam Hodge from Seven Cups, an American tea company specialising in fine Chinese tea, decided to investigate claims that the price of Longjing tea was falling. He found that while prices may have fallen in resale markets in Beijing - where prices were artificially inflated by officials willing to pay any price - in wholesale markets in Hangzhou, where the tea is from, prices remained the same or were steadily rising.

"The price in Hangzhou for Longjing tea has not decreased, never has, and it never will, despite what the media both here and in China have reported," he wrote in the company's blog

According to Dick: "The price of vintage puer had started falling from its peak even before the current crackdown." But it's still far from cheap. "Just last year, a 100-year-old stack of raw puer cakes from wild tea trees sold for five million yuan (HK$6.3 million) a kilogram, or about HK$19,000 per cup of tea."

There is a consensus that the price of puer will continue to fall, which Dick says "might explain the lack of buying interest at the auction".

Other local experts are more sceptical. "The price of puer tea has gone up and will continue to go up a lot," says Dickson Lau Tak-sang from Ying Kee Tea House. "Not much changed after the corruption crackdown. The market maybe slowed down a bit, but not too much."

For those in the business of selling tea, Lau says, this is still a boom time. "The market is going up slowly, but for the past two or three years there has been a big change because the customers coming from mainland China are big spenders. They buy the most expensive teas and big quantities. Our oldest puer tea is from 1961 and costs HK$70,000 for one piece of cake. They'll come and buy maybe 100 pieces."

China's wealthy officials may think twice before splashing out on super-expensive teas to avoid public displays of conspicuous consumption, but premium teas by their nature will always be an expensive commodity.

"A premium quality tea will be hand-picked and processed using traditional techniques handed down the generations," Dick says.

"Often, the tea gardens will be hundreds of years old and only produce two crops per year. These artisan teas have a distinctive flavour, unique to the garden they come from. While it does cost more to produce a premium tea, the extraordinary prices paid for some teas reflect the scarcity more than anything."

Vincent Chu Ying-wah, a tea expert and the organiser of the recent auction, shrugs off suggestions that the anti-corruption drive has had much of an effect. In fact, he says, the tea that failed to sell at this year's Hong Kong auction sold for HK$2.5 million just afterwards, to a mainland buyer in a private sale.

For Chu, the failure of the auction was just a case of bad timing, taking place in a year in which other major tea auctions were held in Asia - "diluting the market".

The notion that the younger generation is turning its back on tea in favour of beverages such as coffee, wine and spirits is also disputed. Although some young people in Asia may disdain the tea-drinking habits of their parents in favour of something more Western and trendy, the opposite is more often the case.

China's exploding economic clout owes much to its rapidly growing middle class, and young consumers who are proudly Chinese are looking for ways to express their Chinese identity in their consumption, experts say. Tea fits the bill perfectly.

Chu concedes that "it is very true that old tea or collection-grade teas are mainly collected by older people", but young people are starting to get in on the action.

"More young people like tasting tea, and the tea market is growing in the world because young people have become a new target of the tea market," he says.

Lau agrees: "Nowadays, it is more and more young people. We've changed our decorations since 2005 in our 10 shops; we changed our decorations to suit the young people."

Chu baulks at the notion that coffee and wine are replacing tea. It's just the opposite, he says. "I think people prefer drinking tea rather than coffee now. The tea market has seen greater growth than the coffee market. And, tea culture is more popular than wine now as people are pursuing a healthy living style."

The numbers tell much the same story. On the global stage tea is booming. Thanks in no small part to a craze for foods that are considered healthy and natural, premium tea consumption is growing by 5 per cent a year, one expert notes.

And, arguments that tea is being upstaged by coffee fall flat considering Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, has publicly stated that these days he is more of a tea drinker. Schultz has put his money where his mouth is, buying American tea retailer Teavana for US$Surprisingly - given that Hong Kong is caught between two of the world's greatest tea-loving nations, England and China - the city has never been a hotspot for tea appreciation. Hong Kong lags behind the mainland, Taiwan and even Macau in terms of premium tea consumption. Hongkongers tend to take their tea cheap, over-brewed and sweetened with milk; it's seen more as part of a social ritual than as a beverage worthy of reverence.

Still, Hong Kong seems to be catching up with the global trend, though Dick says it is driven "more by an appreciation of Western-style teas".

The people behind the coffee shop, The Coffee Academics, recently opened The Tea Academics in Causeway Bay, and other coffee shops are following suit. Many coffee hot spots in the city, alongside five-star hotels, also now offer their own unique blends of premium tea.

Thursday, January 8, 2015

'Fang Yuan Pai' (aka square circle brand) of tea ware was produced in China from the 60s to the early 90s. This period saw China being a closed door economy but many Chinese products were produced and exported overseas. Foodstuff, dried and canned and many household products were available for purchase in South East Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore. These items were inexpensive and popular, and it was very common to see China made products used or consumed in many homes in this part of the world.

Tea and tea ware were also exported by China during this period. Oolongs and other teas were packed in cans and paper boxes (mainly 'Sea Dyke' brand) and was sold mainly to the Chinese community. Porcelain kitchenware which include teapots and teacups were also very common and used by many households.

'Fang Yuan Pai' teaware is significant in a Chinese teapot collection. When collectors talk about teapots made or produced in the China communist era, most collectors would talk about this 'Fang Yuan Pai' brand. This brand of tea ware was authorized for production by the Chinese government, where actual factories were allowed to make clay products including tea ware, and even exporting these items overseas. This would imply there is a level of 'mass production' of these tea ware. However, as these tea ware was inexpensive and was bought for daily use in the homes, not many people actually collected these tea ware as a hobby then.

I had purchased some tea ware made by 'Fang Yuan Pai' (link) which included a few tea caddies and a European style teacups and saucers.

The 'Fang Yuan' teapots now are extremely collectible and are sought after by Chinese teapot collectors. These teapots were made in Yixing, China using the clay mined in that region. My collection includes these 3 teapot designs as seen in the pix. The 1st teapot shown is interesting as the bottom of the teapot was not 'embossed' with the regular maker's markings but instead you see a Chinese phrase literally translated as - There is an old man in the mountain.

I found out that during the state-controlled period of China (60s to early 90s), there were a few clay factories in Yixing. There were simply called factory no.1 through 5. Teapot productions I was told came out from factories 1,2,5. Not to bore my readers, but expert teapot collectors are able to determine from a teapot and the relevant stickers which factory the teapot came from and in some cases who the maker of the teapot was. Collecting these teapots can be a very serious business as many of these teapots are hard to find and are quite expensive. I know one teapot collector who refused to removed the factory sticker on the teapot while brewing his tea with it. Anyway, you must know your teapots, if you are buying from this period, to ensure the authenticity of your purchase.

The last 2 pix show the original factory boxes that came with each teapot.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

I start the new year blog with an old tea. This is the early 90s Fangcha ripe brick. This 100g square brick comes housed in a traditional paper box.

I do not have much experience with these paper boxes, in that I am not sure whether they are generic boxes used by tea factories when they produced these square brick pu erh tea. Raw and ripe square bricks were produced (around the 80s) in this fashion and the famous 1992 raw brick that came in this type of packaging are a favorite with tea connoisseurs. I have yet to lay my hands on this famous brick. There are a few tea factories still producing 100g square bricks packing them in similar boxes.

Back to this brick. The back of the box seem to indicate this tea is produced by Menghai Tea Factory (aka Dayi or Taetea). You will notice that mould press produced a nice 'cha' with 8 '中' on the tea brick.

Initial brews of this tea gave a very pronounced 'woody' aroma, like wooden antiques. My friends and I call this scent 'old mother hubbard'. This woody aroma is less prominent after I had broken up the brick and stored the tea in a tea caddy for a week. A very pleasant tea to drink and I have only about 30g left after 2 weeks of opening this brick.

Muses of a tea drinker

I enjoy my cup of tea. Have a chuckle with me when you read my thoughts on tea, whether its silly or politically incorrect.
I have an online store (opened in July 2016) that has some of my favorite teas I had found during my tea travels - www.adventureineverycup.com